Brad’s clear catch

I had landed in Phoenix for a convention and decided to grab some lunch. As I was sitting at the table, I got a notification: “Person - Entryway: Your camera spotted someone.”

This was a rare notification to get in the middle of the day. We were not expecting any maintenance workers to be coming to the apartment and my fiancée was at work. I immediately opened the app and saw a man that I did not recognize.

In a controlled frenzy, I called my fiancée and told her she had to call the apartment complex, let them know that there was someone who did not belong in our apartment and that the police needed to be notified. As I was across the country, I was live streaming someone walking in and out of my house and into my bedroom.

After what felt like hours, but must have realistically been about a minute, I received a call from the apartment complex that the police had been notified and I was connected to police dispatch to give them any information I had.

“How do you know there was someone in the apartment?” I was asked when first getting on the phone with dispatch.

“I have a Nest Cam and I am watching him right now. He is currently in the apartment," I said.

I was then asked for a description of the man. Thanks to the excellent footage from the Nest Cam, I was able to describe the burglar as wearing “camo shorts, dark T-shirt, looks like there is a white T-shirt or tank top underneath showing out of the bottom, goatee, sunglasses, blue Nike Foamposite shoes.”

By this time, my fiancée had left work to head to the apartment to handle the situation. When she arrived, she was notified that they had a man in custody. The police told her it was the “blue Nike Foamposite” shoe information I gave to dispatch that identified the man. They requested that I send screenshots or video or whatever evidence I had that could give them a positive ID to the man they had in custody. I texted her the screenshots I took, and a couple of clips. It was a positive ID for the man they had in custody.

“Wow, what kind of camera is that? Those pictures and video are crystal clear,” the police asked my fiancée.

The man broke into my house at 1:47 pm. I was able to witness the police entering my apartment and they had the man in custody by 2:17 pm. When I bought the Nest Cam, my fiancée told me it was a waste of money and I was being overly protective for no reason. After what happened, she fully understands why I bought the camera.

There are few things scarier than getting the notification of the camera spotting someone in your residence when no one is supposed to be there. Luckily, I had my Nest Cam. Thankfully, the police were nearby and able to catch the guy. Hopefully, this story will give people that push to get cameras and protect their house and loved ones. I can say with 100% confidence, that if it wasn’t for Nest, everything I owned would have become the property of someone else. My only regret is not having more cameras.